Pathways to an Inner Islam

An introduction to four Western figures influenced by Sufism who wrote about an "inner," esoteric Islam. Pathways to an Inner Islam provides an introduction to the esoteric or spiritual “inner Islam” presented by Western thinkers Louis Massignon, Henry Corbin, René Guénon, and Frithjof Schuon. Particularly interested in Sufism—the mystical tradition of Islam—these four twentieth-century authors who wrote in French played an important role in presenting Islamic spirituality to the West and have also had an influence in parts of the Muslim world, such as Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan. Patrick Laude brings them together to argue that an understanding of their inner Islam challenges reductionist views of Islam as an essentially legalistic tradition and highlights its spiritual qualities. The book discusses their thought on the definitions of spiritual Islam and Sufism, the metaphysical and mystical understanding of the Prophet and the Qur

PATHWAYS TO AN INNER ISLAM

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1. INTRODUCTION

The spiritual, mystical, and esoteric doctrines and practices of Islam, which
may be conveniently, if not quite satisfactorily, labeled as Sufism, have been
among the main avenues of the understanding of this religion in Western academic
circles, and possibly among Western audiences in general. This stems
from a number of reasons, not the least of which is a diff use sense that Sufism...

2. SUFISM, SHĪ‘ISM, AND THE DEFINITION OF INNER ISLAM

The very mention of an inner dimension of Islam brings to the fore the question
of the defi nition of Sufi sm and the related assessment of its relationship
with Islam at large. These matters were central to European Islamology in the
twentieth century, and they continue to be vital to any integral understanding
of Islam in our times...

3. THE QUR’ĀN

The contemporary renewal of religions bears witness to a quest for criteria of certainty in a world that is bereft of absolute benchmarks and appears increasingly inclined to accommodate a wide relativistic consensus as a guardrail against tyrannies and brutal exploitation. This need for certainty has primarily been focused on sacred Scriptures conceived as repositories of ultimate truth. ...

4. THE PROPHET

It is not possible to delve into the inner dimensions of Islam without considering the role of the Prophet in the spiritual economy of the religion. In our context, such a consideration is unavoidably related to an understanding of the notion of prophethood. It is also to be situated in contradistinction with the Christian outlook on the Man-God and the Incarnation. As has been ...

5. THE FEMININE

The question of the status of women in Islam has been at the forefront of most discussions of that religion in the last decades. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that it has become a kind of cultural symbol of the deep civilizational chasm that is deemed by many to have widened between Islam and the West. The pervasive Western perception that Islam condones a social ...

6. THE UNIVERSAL HORIZON OF ISLAM

There is no world religion that does not claim universality for itself, at least in the sense of its being potentially accepted by all of mankind. Even autochthonous shamanistic traditions, as bound as they may be to a particular people and a particular land by virtue of their spiritual economy being intimately connected to a sense of sacred immanence in the most concrete natural and ...

7. THE QUESTION OF WAR

The use of force, and particularly military force, in furthering purportedly
religious goals is one of the most sensitive and difficult issues that must be
reckoned with in the contemporary world. This is obviously and primarily
due to the high visibility of religious violence in the world of Islam taken
as a geo-political force...

8. EPILOGUE

The preceding pages have provided us with glimpses of a rich and integrated,
if diverse, vision of Islamic spirituality; a metaphysical and mystical picture of
inner Islam has emerged from an overall converging and often complementary
set of insightful works of meditation and spiritual interiorization of Islam
and Sufi sm. In the wake of Louis Massignon, Henry Corbin...

Welcome to Project MUSE

Use the simple Search box at the top of the page or the Advanced Search linked from the top of the page to find book and journal content. Refine results with the filtering options on the left side of the Advanced Search page or on your search results page. Click the Browse box to see a selection of books and journals by: Research Area, Titles A-Z, Publisher, Books only, or Journals only.